David Reece recalls his audition with Badlands and Jake E. Lee being like a vampire with his sleeping habits
Former Accept frontman David Reece and guitarist Herman Frank were recently interviewed by Jimmy Kay and Alan Dixon for Canada’s The Metal Voice. The two ex-Accept members were promoting their new band Iron Allies, which also includes drummer Francesco Jovino, bassist Malte Burkert and rhythm guitarist Mike Pesin, and which will be releasing its debut album Blood In Blood Out via AFM Records on October 21, 2022.
Reece was asked about his audition with Badlands a few decades ago to which he replied (as provided by The Metal Voice with slight edits):
“They (Badlands) were thought that I was the guy and Jake (E. Lee) you know was the boss and Ray (Gillen) — I don’t know if he had passed yet or was at home at his mother’s. I don’t know, God bless him. But I had done a bunch of shows with Badlands and we’d open for them and Ray would always come in the dressing and put his arms around me and say ‘Dude! Damn dude! You’re nailing it.’ And I mean here’s Ray Gillen — you know, the guy was amazing. But Greg (Chaisson, Badlands‘ bassist) kept an eye on me and then when they kind of fizzled out. He called me one day and said ‘Come down to the rehearsal studio. I’ve told Jake about you and Jake he’s interested.’
So I went down there it was basically the three of us we waited three hours and Jake just opened the door, his hair in his face, cigarette burning his air cranked his Randalls (Amps) to ear bleeding volume, played to the set a few times and in those days, I could do “High Wire” (the song) pretty easily. It went really well and Jake and I exchanged numbers and he’s a vampire. I mean, the guy sleeps all day and the guy would call me at four o’clock in the morning. ‘Hey man.’ I’d be like ‘Hello. Who’s this?’ [Jake would respond] ‘Jake, dude! What are you doing?’ [David would reply] ‘Well I’m sleeping. What’s up?’ Then one night, he called me and said ‘I’ve changed my mind. I’m gonna work with Mandy Lion and I’m gonna do a Prince meets death metal project called World War III.’ And I went okay… Yeah, Prince meets death metal. I didn’t know what he was talking about and then he just kind of disappeared, I mean, and that’s Jake. He’s a brilliant player but in and out. I think he said at rehearsal about five words and then he’d call me and just kind of mumble and then hang up. You know, it was never like ‘Do I get the gig?’ Or ‘What’s going on?’ It was weird.”
You can listen to the interview with David Reece and Herman Frank on The Metal Voice below:
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